Katherine is deeply passionate about arts leadership and interdisciplinary collaboration, and her innovative projects have been sponsored by multiple grants from the University of Tennessee and Rackham College at the University of Michigan. With her colleagues at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Katherine co-founded the Knoxville International Piano Festival and Competition, attracting seventy-five young pianists and over two dozen guest artists in its inaugural year. In another recent project exploring the intersections of artistic media, Katherine commissioned seven new pieces of art from graduate and undergraduate visual art students, each new work created directly in response to a solo piano piece. Her work on interdisciplinary studies was featured in a lecture titled Painting Sound: A Case Study in Fostering Creativity and Collaboration Across the Arts presented at the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy.
In demand as a masterclass clinician and adjudicator, Katherine places great importance on encouraging and supporting the next generation of musicians. She recently presented masterclasses for the Blount County Keyboard Teachers Association, the Evelyn Miller Young Artist Series, and the Knoxville International Piano Festival, working with a diversity of age groups from elementary students up to collegiate artists. Katherine has also served on the jury for multiple competitions, including the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition, the Tennessee Music Teachers Association Piano Competitions, and the Alabama and Florida Music Teachers Association Piano Competitions.
Katherine has additionally garnered numerous triumphs in over a dozen international and national piano competitions, having won top prizes and recognitions in the Heida Hermanns, Seattle, Kerikeri, Walled City Music, Teresa Carreño, and Thousand Islands International Piano Competitions.
Katherine holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Eastman School of Music, and Northwestern University. Her teachers included Arthur Greene, Nelita True, James Giles, and Chih-Long Hu. She serves on the faculty of the University of Tennessee Knoxville College of Music, where she maintains a full studio of piano majors and teaches courses in piano pedagogy, piano literature, and chamber music.
American pianist KATHERINE BENSON is emerging as an important artistic figure of her generation through her “stunning” (ArtsKnoxville) performances and passion for arts leadership.
Katherine is in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, adjudicator, and teacher, and has performed across the USA and abroad in Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. Highlights from the 2023-2024 concert seasons include Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the University of Tennessee Symphony Orchestra, Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the Johnson City Symphony Orchestra, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Clara Schumann’s Concerto in A Minor with Spectrum Orchestra, as well as solo recitals in Michigan, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Washington, and North Dakota.
An avid chamber musician, Katherine is the Artistic Director and pianist for The Paramount Chamber Players (TPCP), one of the premier chamber music ensembles of the Appalachian Region and in its twentieth concert season. Since taking her role with TPCP in 2020, Katherine has organized and performed on over two dozen concerts with the ensemble, including a professionally recorded and entirely virtual 2020–2021 concert season.